Coping: With the I/O Problem

Along about tomorrow, Apple is expected to unveil a new tablet-sized product and CEO Steve Jobs says this is the most important thing he’s ever done.

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While a low-priced notebook seems glitzy, the price point won’t be much different from Amazon’s Kindle which, by the way, has a smallish keyboard.  And that’s where my focus today begins.

While micro keyboards seem like a good thing, along with input stylus contraptions, the fact of the matter is that successful computering involves what I call the ‘speed bump’ on the man-machine-interface (MMI).  And that is what?

How fast can you type and how fast can you talk?  In my case, although it’s not a classic touch-typing style, I can whip out ideas at between 60 and 110 words per minutes.  Most of my morning report flows out around 100 WPM once the coffee kicks in.  If I ever get around to answering emails, I use DragonSpeaking 10 and that gives me a break from keyboarding for a while.  And with the new quad-core screamer, things roll right along at blazing speed.

To be sure, you have maybe never tried on a real power-computing workstation and maybe one of these mornings I should take a picture of what it’s like here in the morning.  Four monitors and a TV set with overseas media going plus an occasional noise from the police scanner.  The right monitor is looked into quotes, the middle monitor is big enough to write the column on the right-hand side while pulling news leads and research off the left-hand side of the screen.  The right-hand monitor displays emails as they come in and the 4-th monitor has Projhect up with this week’s activities mapped out.

Since it’s all pulled together with a pair of dual-output video cards, the whole desktop flows seamlessly and bloody awful fast.

While it may seem – especially to listen to marketers – that notebook computers are really cool and all, for genuine productivity I would rather walk around with a dictating machine for making notes rather than futz around with a stylus or roll-up keyboard.

Give me the old Microsoft wireless keyboard and wireless mouse and I can kick back and roll through my work with blazing speed, although it you’re waiting for an email from me, it may not seem that way at times.

Before you get whipped up into a frenzy about spending money on computing gadgets when the come out, do me a favor:  Measure how fast you can really type, how fast you can talk, and how fast you can write if you’re trying to scribble down thoughts.

My bet is that you can talk between 100 and 120 words per minute, and maybe as fast as 150 words per minute if you’re from New York and you just stepped out of a Starbucks with a double shot Americano and a poppy seed muffin for breakfast.  Maybe only 70 words per minute in more laid-back East Texas if you’ve just finished a huge chicken-friend steak breakfast with milks and extra toast and you’re talking to someone in the aisle at Tractor Supply.

But you’re getting my point, I hope?  You can type and talk faster than the dickens and so the point of effort for maximum improvement would be a speed typing package and DragonBreath.

Getting real work done is an I/O speed issue.  How fast can you read (which is where the Vortex reader is useful, BTW) and how fast can you output?  Type like hell or talk.

Texting is a time vampire for people who are too dense to figure out the most important commodity in the world is time and anything that is not getting you toward a goal is keeping you from it.

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While I expect applies latest and greatest will be a worthy product and all, unless it scores fewer errors on the input side than Dragon or my keyboard or that little Olympus dictating unit of mine (which can be plugged in to Dragon for conversion to text later) pardon me while I just stay over here in the fast lane with my heavy iron, thanks.

Oh, and if I want to get a message to you, I’ll email or call. 

Other Gaps in Our Thinking

We’ve talked in the past few weeks about the “Gap” in the linguistics that appears in late 2011 (October’ish) and then gets worse into 2012 and then recovers slowly thereafter.  That got a reader to thinking:

“Would the cutting of several undersea data cables – ostensibly by earthquakes (real or imagined) – account for the Gap? Just a thought.”

That’d do it, alright, but have you ever considered the number and magnitude of quakes necessary to do that?  Good grief!

Rarium and Unobtanium

First year business students learn this one:  Supply shortage4s drive up prices.  Which is why the headline “Global supply of rate earth elements could be wiped out” catches my eye.

So now I have another shortage to worry about on my list of Things to Study:

• Why are banks not owning up to the number of $100 payments that keep home loans out of the nonperforming category?
• With China soaking up supplies, will they cut off sup0p0lies of rare earth elements to the rest of the world from 2012 on?
• And the MOST important question on my list of things to study:  Why can’t I get Krusteaz Buckwheat pancake mix in Texas? 
• The runner up being “Why can’t I get Krusteaz sourdough mix in Texas?”

 

By the way – if you want to pop for a good book on this strategic metals problem, a book on point is The Strategic Metals War written by James E. Sinclair.  You know, as in www.jsmineset.com

One More Worry

Maybe this one is not as big as the mystery of why I can’t get Krusteaz pancakes, but “Computer-driven trading raises meltdown fears” headlines a Financial Times story.  But wait!  Why not play the short side via options?

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Send your comments to george@ure.net

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